College Football Roundup: Louisville rallies, captures BCS bid

Banged-up Teddy Bridgewater came off the bench to throw two second-half touchdown passes, and John Wallace kicked a 29-yard field goal with 1:41 left to send Louisville to the BCS with a 20-17 victory over Rutgers on Thursday night in Piscataway, N.J.

In a game between one team headed to the Big Ten and another bound for the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big East handed out its second-to-last bid to a school that entered the league during its last massive rebuild in 2005 and watched its athletic program blossom.

The Cardinals will be going to the BCS for the second time, first since 2006. Either the Orange or Sugar Bowl will be the destination.

Louisville (10-2, 5-2) will share this Big East title with Rutgers (9-3, 5-2), Syracuse and possibly even Cincinnati, but the BCS bid will go to the Cardinals.

The BCS standings will be used to break the tie and there is no doubt Louisville, with the best overall record in the conference, will be on top.

Bridgewater didn't start a week after getting roughed up in a loss to Connecticut.

He broke his left wrist and sprained his right ankle. He entered for the first time in the second quarter and finished with 263 yards passing and threw a pair of TD passes in the third quarter to wipe out a 14-3 deficit.

Pac-12 Championship: Tonight's game is a rematch of last Saturday's regular-season finale between Stanford and UCLA, won by the Cardinal 35-17.

Call last week a dress rehearsal, although even that may be in question. Stanford will wear its black uniforms, helmets and shoes for only the fourth time.

UCLA is expected to swap out those dark blue “L.A. Night” jerseys for its traditional white tops, gold pants and gold helmets on the road.

With the league title at stake, what else the eighth-ranked Cardinal (10-2, 8-1) and the No. 16 Bruins (9-3, 6-3) bring out of the closet for the sequel at Stanford Stadium might not be so obvious.

MAC Championship: No. 17 Kent State (11-1) takes on No. 21 Northern Illinois (11-1) for the Mid-American Conference title tonight at Ford Field in Detroit. The winner could end up in the Orange Bowl.